Police say three suspected militants whom they arrested in Dhaka’s Gabtoli are Neo-JMB operatives who travelled from Chanpainawabganj with a plan to carey out “activities against the state”.

They had been members of the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB but later joined the group’s revived faction Neo-JMB after it carried out the July 1, 2016 attack on a café in Dhaka’s Gulshan, according to police.

They joined the new group through Soheil Mahfuz, a “militant leader” who is behind bars now on charges of supplying bombs used in the Gulshan attack, police’s Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime unit Deputy Commissioner Saiful Islam said on Thursday.

Mollaji and Arif had received “militancy training” in India as well, he said.

“A section of the militant group hides in India sometimes due to the crackdown here. They try to conduct activities against the state in Bangladesh whenever they get the opportunity to return,” the police officer said.

Mollaji and Arif also led “Neo-JMB members” Shahin Alam, Ziaur Rahman, ‘Arif’, ‘Kabir’, ‘Jahirul’ aka Mamunur Rashid, ‘Harun’ and some others into their den in India and arranged their training in different states of the country, including Jharkhand and Kerala, Saiful said.

He cited information given by the arrestees in initial interrogations.